Shawn Marion has never been a lock down defender. lets not change reality. Who has he really done a good job on? he was too slow laterally to guard the elite two guards in his prime, too small to guard the pfs he matched up with and never really bothered Pierce or Bron or Melo. He has never even been used as a shut down defender.

He couldn't guard him. Bruce Bowen said Mj was his toughest cover and Ron said it too. You have vids on YouTube with Mj blowing pass Artest,Jason Kidd, KG,Kobe, Marion, Tmac(Prime),PP,Ray Allen,Grant hill(Mj was 35 facing ray) etc... at 38 years old coming off sergery on knees. Lol at anyone of this guy stopping MJ in his prime

You seem smart enough and like you know what a good argument consists of.

1. I'm saying we don't have enough evidence here for a good argument in MJ's case or Artest's case.

We have a video that was edited to take away any evidence Artest's side of the argument would have.

2. And yes, it's a single possession at the end of the game.

The best defender of MJ over an infinite number of possessions will have the best chance to guard him on that one possession.

If player x has an MJ stoppage rate of 40% over infinite possessions and player y's is 39%, player x wins.

Unless you are trying to say that for some reason that one possession will be different than the others. Like you are saying that Artest for some reason will be worse on an end of game possession than a regular possession throughout the game.

3. I gotta go. LOL.

I look forward to seeing a response to this when I'm back if you want to leave one.

1. No, we don't have enough evidence either way. I agree with you there, the video( like any highlight video of this nature) is simply snapshots of moments in time between player X and player y. Yes, the author of this video could be biased in favor of Jordan and therefore edit the video to make it look like Jordan is 'killing' Artest, while leaving out any evidence of Artest 'stopping' Jordan. Believe me, I understand the point you're making there.

2. Without knowing the best 'stoppage' rate for any of Jordan's defenders, I really can't say.

In terms of that single possession, particularly late game there's also the point that Jordan famously raised his level of play( though we can probably say Artest would raise his defensive pressure/ability as well) but that's not tangible, moreso its that intangible factor that isn't really measurable.

The reality is if we were to extrapolate( there's that word again lol) Artest defending Jordan for an entire game, or series, it's reasonable to speculate that Jordan would have occasions of scoring on Artest, Artest would have occasions where he managed to stay in front of Jordan and successfully defend him into either missing or passing it off. But in that single possession, really it's anyone's guess but I would tend to lean with Jordan for the simple reason that a historically great offensive player like Jordan has too many weapons, too many ways to manufacture something out of nothing, too many ways to improvise, to think that one defender could literally take away all of Jordan's offensive weapons and options in that 10 second frame.

That's what makes guys like Jordan and Kobe such dynamic offensive talents, is their ability to create, improvise and keep the defense off-balance and guessing. But seriously, if you played out that 10 second scenario ten times over, it's going to result in 10 totally different outcomes; it will either result in a score or a miss( or a foul or a pass), but the dynamics between the two players will differ each time the situation plays itself out( not only that but the dynamics of how their respective teammates react is subject to the same variation, and that needs to be considered as well).

3. It's all good, if you have further comment I look forward to reading it.